Blog from Sean Dolan, Assistant Programs Director, Asian Studies Suite, Elliott School of International Affairs
I was fortunate to develop many valuable skills throughout this year’s GWALA program. Some of the very useful topics we worked on included conflict resolution, making tough decisions, and navigating uncertainty. One recurring theme that was key to many of these discussions was the importance of communication. Differing communication styles and mismatched expectations can often cause unnecessary conflict, and many problems can be avoided with clear, intentional communication. This importance of communication is especially relevant in interactions between faculty and staff, many of whom have differing working styles and an often unclear understanding of the full scope of each other’s roles.
I help lead a team of staff members who are supervised by faculty members, and who frequently collaborate with affiliated faculty for special projects and events. Coming from a staff perspective, it can sometimes feel like faculty do not understand the extent of “behind the scenes” work that goes into planning and executing a successful event, along with the other demands on staff members’ time. This leads to conflict as faculty may request for an event to be put together on an impractical timeline or at a scale that is not possible to execute on short notice. While I am looking at this problem from my role as a staff member, I recognize that faculty themselves have an array of responsibilities about which staff may be unaware. After talking with faculty in my department and gaining insights from faculty colleagues in our GWALA cohort, I have a better appreciation of how these “behind the scenes” responsibilities may impact how faculty approach their collaboration with staff.
In an effort to minimize miscommunication and foster a better working relationship between faculty and staff, my project this year was to develop a guide for faculty-staff interaction when planning events. In consultation with both faculty and staff, I developed a guide to manage expectations on both sides and streamline communications to avoid potential conflict. The first section focuses on shared goals to prioritize when planning an event. How does the potential event align with the mission of our center/institute, our school, and the university as a whole? The second section of the guide focuses more on common issues that frequently come up in events planning. It addresses how to handle requests on funding, event timelines, availability of staff support, and other logistical issues. By identifying potential issues in advance, faculty and staff can start planning events on the same page.
The center and institute directors of my office suite (who themselves are faculty) have reviewed the guide and agreed to share it with affiliated faculty members prior to the start of the new semester. My hope is that this guide will be a good starting point for conversations between faculty and staff on potential events, which will help avoid unnecessary conflict in the future. I hope to continue to build on the skills that I learned from GWALA this year to promote good working relationships between faculty and staff. Despite our different roles, we are all on the same team and working towards common goals!